“Which would be?” asked Isher.
“Your demands and his possible concessions to those demands. The king knows men of your quality wouldn’t lead soldiers against him without legitimate grievances. His Majesty is fully prepared to fight, but he wishes at all costs to avoid shedding Union blood on Union soil.”
“He’s playing for time,” burst out Barezin. “I’ve a mind to order my men across those bloody fields and take my dinner in bloody Stoffenbeck without his bloody invitation!”
Steebling, the old lord who owned the ruinous tower-house, sitting nearby with a gouty leg up on a stool, threw in an unhelpful snort of contempt.
“I’ll give the orders,” growled Leo, and Barezin sank grumpily into the roll of fat under his chin. “Please convey my thanks to His Majesty. He’ll have my answer within the hour.”
Tunny drew himself up in the saddle to deliver that exhibition of a salute again, then whisked his horse masterfully about and bore the king’s radiant standard back towards Stoffenbeck. You couldn’t deny it was a hell of a flag. Perhaps when this was over it would have to go back to Angland, where it belonged.
“We should attack at once,” growled Barezin, with a warlike flourish of his fist. “Eh, Isher? We should attack!” Some of the more aggressive lords manfully grumbled their agreement. Easy for them to say, they’d attacked nothing more dangerous than a pork chop in their lives.
Isher fidgeted with his gloves but said nothing. He’d a lot less to say on a battlefield than in a drawing room, on the whole.
“Are Stour’s men ready?” asked Leo, in Northern.
Greenway’s grin was almost a leer. “Oh, we’re always up for a fight.”
Jin frowned sideways at him. “He didn’t ask you to measure your cock. He asked if Stour’s men are ready.”
“They’re working through the woods. An hour and they’ll be at the treeline. Maybe two.”
Leo winced. Maybe two could easily mean three. It wouldn’t be enough to push Orso back, he had to crush him. Could they do it in the lag end of an afternoon? He shaded his eyes, trying to work through the distances, the times, but there was so much to consider, his sight danced and his head buzzed with it all. He turned to ask Jurand’s opinion, then remembered, and felt the sting of disappointment and betrayal all over again. He was the only one of Leo’s friends who’d ever really had an opinion worth listening to. Such a clear thinker. Such a cool head in a crisis. Why did the best man Leo knew have to be a bloody pervert? He clenched his fist.
“Isher, Barezin, what about you?”
“My men are up,” fretted Isher, sounding less than delighted about it. “Already deploying on the right.”
“And mine are coming up!” boomed Barezin. He couldn’t say a word without trying to make a threat out of it. “My Gurkish Legion will be ready to advance within the hour!”
Steebling gave another contemptuous cackle. Leo gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it.
“What about the rest of the Open Council?”
Barezin thumped his fat fist into his fat palm. “Mostly up!”
“Partly up,” said Isher. “Some are still bogged down on the bad roads…”
The roads were dried out now. It was damp command and soggy discipline that were slowing them down. They’d need more time to deploy, especially with those orchards and that river ahead. But then the bluff beyond looked only lightly held. It might be better to try to grab it now than wait…
“Damn it,” Leo muttered. As a captain, the right things to do were never in doubt. Follow orders. Care for your men. Lead by example. As a general, the right things were shrouded in fog. Everything was a best guess, a fine judgement, an each-way bet with thousands of lives staked on the outcome. The decisions he’d taken in the past had always been in the heat of the moment. He’d never had time to weigh the consequences.
Had his mother been right? Was he no general? He caught himself wishing she was with him and forced the thought away. By the dead, he was the Young Lion! But courage and a loud roar wouldn’t be enough. Antaup was right, it was bad ground. Men would die taking those positions. Good men. Friends like Ritter and Barniva, killed by his recklessness.
“We have the numbers,” he mused to himself, rubbing at his aching leg. “They have no help coming.”
“Bunch o’ bloody traitors,” said Steebling, more than loud enough to be heard, swigging from a bottle and giving them a scornful stare over it. Leo would’ve liked to kick him off his chair and roll him down the hill, but they were here to free the Union’s people from the tyranny of the Closed Council, not kick them off their chairs, however much they deserved it.
Mustred gave him a nod of encouragement. “The men of Angland are with you, Your Grace, whatever you decide.”
That should’ve been a comfort. But it only brought home to Leo that the decision was entirely his. He’d always prided himself on being the definition of a man of action. Now, in command, on a battlefield with the enemy before him, the very place he’d always dreamed of being, he felt paralysed.
He found himself wishing that Rikke was there. He loved Savine, but she’d a habit of forcing her opinions on people. A subtle, velvety kind of forcing, but her opinions still. Rikke had a way of cutting through the tangle to the simple heart of things. She’d helped him see what he wanted.
He rounded angrily on Hardbread. “Where the bloody hell is Rikke?” The old warrior swallowed and gave a helpless shrug.
High Ground
Rikke squatted in the wet woods, fretting at the old dowel around her neck, going over and over her own tooth marks with her thumbtip.
Her father had spent half his life squatting in wet woods, and it was nice to feel that she was following in his footsteps, but that was poor compensation for the clingy cold spreading across her back as the pines steadily drip, drip, dripped upon her.
“There’s a lot to be said for roofs,” she murmured, under her breath.
She glanced to the right. Armed men knelt among the trees, keeping low. The best men Uffrith had, scarred and war-wise, weapons ready and faces tense. Isern-i-Phail sat with her back to a tree and her spear across her knees, slowly chewing. She leaned to one side, spat and raised her brows at Rikke as if to say, Well?
She glanced to the left. More men. The Nail and the rest of Gregun Hollowhead’s considerable family to the fore, teeth bared like wolves seen a sheep. Hundreds more in the woods behind them, she knew. All tensed like clenched fists, waiting on her say-so. Shivers was on one knee, grey hair plastered about his face with the morning dew, twisting that ring with the red stone around and around on his little finger. He raised the one brow he had at her as if to say, Well?
Rikke narrowed her eyes. Not that narrowing the right one made any difference. A misty night had become a misty day, which had been helpful far as not being seen went but was no help at all far as seeing where they were going now. The road was clear enough, just beyond the trees. The bridge she could see all right. But the gate was naught but a gloomy rumour.
She fiddled at her dowel, fiddled, fiddled. Truth was she hadn’t needed it for months. Let alone a fit, she’d barely had a quiver since she came down from the forbidden lake with the runes on her face. She’d always hated having to wear the damn thing, but here she was hanging on to it. Some last shred of childhood. Some hint of a past where she didn’t have to make the hard choices.